The ordinance repealing the Employee Hours Tax (EHT) has been submitted to the City Clerk and will be on the Council's referral calendar this next Monday. The ordinance will be referred to the Council's Finance and Budget Committee, with final action scheduled for this fall's budget decision process.
One of my reasons for recommending repeal of the EHT is its indirect impact on shifting commuters out
of single occupancy vehicles in favor of alternative transportation choices, such as transit, carpooling, etc. The SOV driver doesn't pay the tax, the employer does. So, the EHT does little, in my view, to encourage transportation alternatives. (Read my earlier posts on this topic here.)
To encourage alternative transportation choices, the benefits or penalties of those choices need to be strikingly clear. For example, the cost of parking when paid for by a driver has a direct relationship to the driver's wallet. Increase the cost of parking and the "purchase" of that service should decline. Increase on-street parking costs (meters and pay stations) to generally equal that of off-street parking and we make even greater progress in encouraging people to consider alternatives.
When looking forward to how to pay for various transportation projects, especially those for neighborhoods and to fulfill the bicycle and pedestrian master plans, we have several options that will also nudge people away from single occupancy vehicles. For example, raising parking meter and pay station hourly rates between 25 cents and 50 cents an hour produces a bit more than $3 million in additional annual revenue. Increasing the Commercial Parking Tax on off-street parking from 10% to 12.5% raises approximately $5 million annually. Every three dollar increase in parking violation fines brings in about $1 million each year. Creating a Transportation Benefit District (allowed by new legislation passed by the State Legislature) and assessing a vehicle license fee of $20 when registrations are renewed raises nearly $10 million. Some combination of these various options can easily replace the estimated $4.5 million in revenue that will be lost when the EHT is repealed this fall.
This issue also presents an opportunity to examine how we use neighborhood business district parking meter and pay station revenues. I'd like the City to dedicate some percentage of these revenues, perhaps as much as 35%, to neighborhood improvements. Let's create a Neighborhood Transportation Fund and allow neighborhoods to apply for grants that would fund neighborhood-specific projects, much like we currently do with the Neighborhood Matching Fund. Objections to neighborhood business district parking meters and pay stations would decrease significantly, I believe, if those neighborhoods could realize a tangible benefit they would influence.
This conversation will continue . . .
